City of Joy: Kolkata starts rolling out citywide Wi-Fi

Not Bengaluru, not Hyderabad, not even Mumbai—it is Kolkata that is set to be India’s first free citywide Wi-Fi network. The phased rollout began from the city’s upmarket Park Street and is likely to be complete by end of April 2015. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee inaugurated the free service on Thursday at a ceremony that had, among other events, a series of group selfies!

Following Park Street, the service will next be made available at Gariahat-Gol Park in south Kolkata and will soon spread to adjoining roads, including Loudon Street, Camac Street, Mirza Ghalib Street and Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road.

The service, provided by Reliance JIO, is free for now and any Wi-Fi-enabled device can access the Internet. Once a user connects to the network, the device browser will display a unique password that will give access to the Internet. Several users who tested the service reported download speeds of up to 10Mbps.